Almost There: Thandiwe Newton in "Crash"

by Cláudio Alves

Happy belated birthday to Thandiwe Newton, who turned 50 last Sunday. From Flirting (1991) to God's Country (2022), the British actress has impressed across a variety of genres and roles, be they prestige melodrama or pulpy sci-fi. There's a tremendous flexibility to her screen presence, a vast range showcased even in projects that never quite rise to her level. Such is the case of Crash, Paul Haggis' divisive Best Picture winner, where Newton is just one thread within a broad tapestry of tricky racial dynamics, each storyline intertwining with ten others. Hyperlink cinema was all the rage in the 00s, and this particular example surely propelled Newton closer to the Oscar race than she'd been before or since.

Though it's no fun to look back on Crash, we shouldn't let the picture's general awfulness bleed into the memory of Newton's work. She's a beacon of quality, shining brightly amid the offensive generalizations which crash into sanctimonious incompetence…

Click to read more ...

YNMS: Crimes of the Future (New Trailer)

by Mark Brinkerhoff

NEON, the enfant terrible of indie film distributors (Parasite, Titane, The Worst Person in the World, etc.), has released a full trailer for the new David Cronenberg film, Crimes of the Future, so you know what that means! Let’s roll…

Click to read more ...

The Mad "Titane" Snaps

by Jason Adams

An inky black oil smudge smeared across a scarred face, big bosoms sway and heave, belly splitting up the seam, the space where sex begins to sound like a car engine revving up to eleven -- Julia Ducournau's Titane doesn't mince a breath of its runtime with anything but pedal-to-the-metal everything. Titane, the director's follow-up to her also-deranged (but somehow less so!) cannibal-drama Raw, won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes, a perfect signifier for the grease-fingered teetering psychosis of our age. After playing NYFF last weekend, it opens in US theaters tomorrow, October 1st.

And this movie, it is a lot!

As Raw already proved Ducournau loves a car accident (I can't imagine that David Cronenberg's Crash wasn't formative) and Titane offers up a doozy early on...

Click to read more ...

Vintage '05

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 2005 is just a week away so get your votes in! Before we get there it's time for more context of that year in showbiz history. Ready? 

Great Big Box Office Hits:
Franchises of multiple kinds dominated the box office with Harry Potter 4, Star Wars Episode 3, and the launches of Chronicles of Narnia and Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy as half of the top ten list that year. Other huge hits were the romantic comedy Hitch, the Brangelina pairing of Mr & Mrs Smith, the remakes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, and King Kong, and the comedies Wedding Crashers and Meet the Fockers.

Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: 
In the mid-Aughts the Oscars were veering away from big hits in their Best Picture lineups (to eventually rule-changing results) but Brokeback Mountain was the most successful of the lot with $178 million globally...

Click to read more ...

Venice Lineup Announced

by Nathaniel R

Hirokazu Kore-eda is back quickly after "Shoplifters" with "The Truth" starring Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, and Ethan Hawke

Since we never get to go to Venice *sniffle* we can't grant them as much time as we do TIFF each year but here's a quick check in with their lineup of films. The festival kicks off on Wednesday August 28th and wraps on Saturday September 7th, just as TIFF's first weekend is in full swing. Telluride happens during all that, too --it's a busy time for cinephiles, critics, stars, and filmmakers... 

Click to read more ...